


Neal's Family

by Spnfandom8



Category: Batman - Fandom, White Collar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26938390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spnfandom8/pseuds/Spnfandom8
Summary: When Neal gets injured on a case, his family comes to check on him.
Kudos: 76





	Neal's Family

“Oh come on Peter! I’m fine, it was just a graze” I insist, arguing with his insistence that I need to stay in the hospital overnight. I don’t like hospitals.  
“A graze means that it didn’t go through you Neal, it went through your side” Peter tells me, raising an eyebrow.  
It’s then that a nurse walks into the room, a syringe full of something in her hand as she approaches my I.V.  
“Woah, wait. What’s in that?” I ask, hating how pain meds make me feel.  
“It’s pain medication, you were shot sir” she says, like as if i’m unaware of that fact.  
“I am fully aware of the fact that I got shot, and seeing as i’m in full control of my mind and motor functions, i’m telling you not to give me that” I tell her, knowing that Peter might argue with me, but he doesn’t have a say, seeing as i’m not currently hopped up on drugs.  
“Are you sure?” she asks hesitantly, looking towards Peter.  
“He’s not in charge of whether or not I get pain meds, I am” I growl, toning it down when I realise that I sound like my other half, not me.  
“Yes, of course” she says, leaving the room, no doubt to call a doctor.  
“And I thought you would try and flirt with her” Peter mutters  
“Usually, I would. But usually i’m not in the hospital with people who want me to stay and take drugs” I tell him, letting him know how much I do not appreciate that fact.  
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you get shot Neal, doing shit that I told you not to do, by the way.” he feels the need to add, making me roll my eyes, i’ve been in much more dangerous situations, i’ve been injured way worse than this too, but they don’t know that.  
“Well, we got him didn’t we?” I tell him smugly, letting a smile overtake my features as El walks in, concern on her face.  
“Hey Elizabeth” I greet, and the concern on her voice as she comes over to check on me instantly reminds me of Alfred.  
“Are you okay?” she asks when she finally sits down next to Peter  
“I’ll be fine, they want to keep me for observation, even though it was a through and through and it didn’t hit anything important, just some muscle and chipped the top of my hip bone.” I tell her, hoping for a sympathizer.  
“That’s not nothing Neal, you’re lucky it didn’t hit anything else” she says.  
“Yeah, lucky” I mutter, knowing that it had nothing to do luck, seeing as the guy was aiming for my fucking head, and I was forced to put some of my old training into play to prevent him from killing me, although I did take the shot, knowing that everyone would question why I didn’t get hurt when I was locked in a fucking box with an angry man with a gun, who was shooting at everything, and I somehow didn’t get shot.  
Elizabeth is about to say something when there is a small commotion outside the door, and I groan when I see more than a few familiar faces pull Damian away from the guard at my door before making their way into the room.  
“Hey fuckface” Jason greets, a grin on his face despite the harsh words.  
“Nice to see you too asshole” I mutter, chuckling.  
“Are you really okay?” a worried voice asks before pushing through the people now in the room to get to my bed.  
“Yeah, Tim, i’m good” I reassure my twin, looking over to Peter and Elizabeth just in time to see the shock on their faces when they see my look-alike.  
I laugh, watching as they slowly get over their surprise, looking back and forth between me and Tim.  
“You have a twin? An identical twin?” Peter asks, his eyes finally sticking on me.  
“Surprise” I say, wincing.  
“Would he have anything to do with your more impossible crimes?” he asks next, completely ignoring the other people in the room, which Elizabeth has not done, instead gaping at the people crowding my room.  
“Of course not Peter. Tim is all morally sound and shit, CEO for Wayne Industries and a straight shooter” I tell him, only lying a little bit. Okay, maybe more than a little bit.  
“Oh” is all Peter says, finally dragging his eyes from the two of us to rest on the other people, doing a double take when he catches sight of Bruce standing at the foot of my bed, Bruce’s eyebrow raised and concern swimming in his eyes.  
“I’m good dad” I murmur, letting him know that i’m alright, knowing how much he worries about us.  
“I’m not sure I would consider getting shot good” he retorts, but I also know that he’s gone out as Batman immediately after getting shot, and with worse injuries than I have now.  
“I will be good” I tell him, changing my statement slightly to fit his standard.  
“We had to be sure. Hospital reports aren’t always the most reliable” he says, making me realise just how worried he must have been, realising that the only one of his kids that didn’t take after him in the vigilante department, was shot and in the hospital.  
“You good Damian?” I ask, looking over at the fuming teenager.  
“I’m fine Neal” he answers, his expression softening as he scans me over for injuries, and due to the extreme confusion of not only having twins that liked to dress alike, have the same haircut, and tell people they were the other one, Damian simply couldn’t keep us straight when he was calling both of us Drake.  
He eventually caved and started calling me Neal, and he chose me because they all knew that I wasn’t going to follow in their footsteps as a vigilante, I simply wasn’t made for it, making me less of a threat to what Damian viewed as his place as the heir to both Wayne Industries and the Batman mantle.  
They all knew I was the wild child, the black sheep when it was just me and Tim with our parents, and they loved me for it. Unlike my parents who always wanted me to be more like Tim, while also leaving him to believe he wasn’t good enough.  
My family though, my real family, they encouraged my differences, my captivation with all things art, my tendency to get lost in a painting, or a drawing for hours on end.  
It’s one of the things that made me click with Damian before any of them did.  
He has a real talent for art, even though he prefers it as a hobby and vigilantism as his career, that and the fact that he never saw me as a threat, physically or for the positions he thought he deserved.  
Even though I was trained the same as Tim, even though I was half of the duo that put together Batman and Robin’s identity. Simply because I preferred to train with them, and not go out onto the streets at night, he saw me as a lesser threat.  
I was fine with that, preferring to stay in my art room than fight with Damian over who was the more experienced and skilled fighter, even though it was me who won whenever we sparred, annoying him to no end.  
He eventually moved on from not hating me because I wasn’t planning on following in their footsteps, to trying to make me become one, insisting that I was wasting too much natural talent and skill to simply become a starving artist.  
He might be right, but I also know that I would rather follow my passion than simply do something because i’m good at it, maybe later in life, when i’ve decided to slow down with my art, i’ll join the rest of my family on the streets, but for now, I like where I am.  
And he was wrong about me being a starving artist, I only did that for a year before deciding that it wasn’t really for me, which is when I met up with Selina and she told me where to find Mozzie, he perfected my forging skills and then started me up with a few gigs, which gave me a high like nothing had before, except of course flying.  
While I never was part of the crime fighting that ran through my family, I was still an adrenaline junkie like them, I still loved soaring through the dark streets of Gotham, melting like a shadow through the darkness of our city, I loved sparring and practicing with my weapons, staying in shape has become a pivotal part of my life and I don’t think i’ll ever be giving that up.  
Bruce taught me everything he taught Tim, how to process a crime scene, chase a suspect, interrogation, intimidation, how to escape from and tie every knot there is, how to escape from different types of containment, i’m immune to all of the drugs that they are, I know how to profile people and how to lie, I know everything that they do.  
I’ve always been ready to join them on the streets, fighting crime alongside them, but it’s never been something that I wanted, and Bruce was more than supportive.  
All he ever wanted for us was to be happy and safe, and he put safe above happy more than once, but them being Robin was never his choice, he was either going to train them to the best of his ability, making sure that they can take care of themselves, and then keep them close to him, or he could have continued to tell them that they weren’t allowed to, and there is no doubt in my mind that they would be dead right now if he chose that option.  
They would have gotten themselves killed before Bruce could have saved them, so instead of going about it the stubborn way, he gave in, he taught them everything he knew so that they could protect themselves, he gave them the tools to save themselves, knowing that he would always be there if they needed him.  
I’m snapped out of my thoughts when Dick flops down onto my bed, being careful not to bump me or hit any of my injuries.  
“Hey munchkin, how’s it feel?” he asks, calling me that dumb nickname that he gave me years ago.  
“I am not a munchkin Dick, and it feels fine” I tell him  
“You have been a munchkin since your little munchkin ass pouted it’s way into my room at three in the morning every night for a month, demanding that I come read to you and Tim” he tells me teasingly.  
“Fuck you, I was 11, not a munchkin” I argue.  
“You were tiny” he tells me, reminding me of how much smaller I was than most kids my age, and even Tim, at that point in my life, the constant neglect and disdain from my parents affecting my appetite, and although I had Tim, I wanted them to love me for who I was too.  
“Yeah well, I still wasn’t a munchkin” I tell him, but everyone has realised that those words brought up long forgotten memories. Not good ones either.  
“You totally were, and just because you got tall doesn’t mean that you aren’t my little munchkin anymore” he says in that annoying mother-y voice he uses on all of us, but more than anyone else, he uses it on me.  
“Not that it did much, all you fuckers are still taller and bigger than I am” I mutter, sulking about the few inches that they all have on me, except Tim, he’s my height, but again, bigger.  
You can’t see it unless you’re looking for it, but he’s got more muscle tone than I do, and no matter how much I work out, his workout regimine, plus patrol, and beating up criminals every night gives him an edge over me.  
“It’s not our fault you ended up being the runt” Jason comments, plopping down in a chair next to Elizabeth.  
“Hello” he says politely, ignoring the fact that her eyes roam over the numerous weapons strapped to his body.  
“Hi, i’m Elizabeth” she says, extending her hand towards him, making his eyebrows furrow as he grasps her hand, confused as to why she isn’t as standoffish as most people are around him.  
“Jason” he says, his confusion working its way through to his voice.  
“Peter” Peter says, leaning over to shake Jason’s hand, even though I know he’s got a million questions flying through his head right now.  
“So, Neal. is there anything you want to tell us?” Peter says then, turning from Jason to look at me.  
“Um, my real name is Neal Peter Grayson-Wayne, gave me a good laugh when you introduced yourself, Peter.” I tell him, a now nervous smile on my face.  
“Bruce Wayne is my adoptive father, Tim Drake is my biological brother and Jason, Dick, and Damian are my adoptive brothers. I ended up changing my name because it wouldn’t do any good if the black sheep of the Wayne family suddenly showed up in FBI custody, so, yeah. Fun fact, even though i’m older than Damian, I have been dubbed the baby of the family, meaning all these assholes are way overprotective, hence the all of them showing up in my hospital room” I tell them, knowing that they could have simply called me.  
“Well Munchkin, it’s not our fault you got yourself shot, if you didn’t get yourself shot then we wouldn’t have shown up” Dick explains.  
“It’s like you don’t even care that I have a secret identity, you know, the one I have so that you guys don’t get dragged into interrogation rooms everytime that they suspect me of borrowing something” I tell him, knowing that they don’t care about my cover, or breaking it, and that the only reason that they hadn’t done so before now, is because they didn’t have any reason to do so.  
“Borrowing something, yeah. At least you didn’t waste your life as a starving artist” Damian says, scoffing.  
“It wouldn’t have been a waste of life, but all of you seem to have shown me that you aren’t the only ones who love a good adrenaline rush, and just because I don’t get mine the same way you do, doesn’t mean I don’t get one.” I tell them, remembering the light and giddy feeling when I successfully pull off a heist. I know that they get the same feeling flying through Gotham, helping people and cleaning up the streets.  
“Fine” he says, moving closer to my bed as his temper calms.  
“You wanna tell me why you were so mad?” I ask, remembering how he lunged at the guard outside my door.  
“No” he says sullenly.  
“Yes you do” I retort, waiting patiently for him to start talking.  
“Father grounded me, the guard overheard and said something about me loving getting punished, just like the rest of my ‘brothers’. I fucking hate people like that.” Damian says, and I immediately know what he’s talking about.  
Since Bruce took Dick in, there have been assholes circulating rumors about Bruce doing, bad things to us, which obviously was not happening.  
All of us have gotten in trouble, more than once, for hitting someone who insinuated that Bruce was a fucking pedophile, and then there were people who took it a step further, insinuating that we liked it.  
I guess the guard falls in the second category.  
“What did you get grounded for?” I ask then, knowing that bringing up the other part of his statement will only agitate him further.  
“I got into a fight at school” he says, pushing Dicks legs off the side of my bed and sitting down.  
“I thought you were going to try and not get into fights, it’s the end of your senior year” I ask him, wondering what it was that set him off this time.  
“Maybe if there weren’t so many homophobic assholes in my school, I wouldn’t have such a problem with hitting people. And before you start, no, they weren’t fucking with me, they don’t have any balls. They seem to forget that I have friends though, friends that I don’t approve of them bullying.” he says, anger clear in every line of his body.  
“In that case, i’m proud of you for standing up for your friends” I tell him.  
“The Dean doesn’t seem to share your sentiment” Bruce says, moving to sit down on the other side of my bed than Peter and Elizabeth, leaving Tim as the last man standing.  
“The Dean has been an asshole since Dick first went there” I retort, knowing that Bruce agrees with us.  
“I know” he says, fixing his eyes on Peter with an unreadable expression.  
“Thank you for taking care of him these last few years” he says after a moment, looking at Peter for a moment longer before shifting his gaze to me.  
I scoot closer to the left side of my bed, closer to Bruce, as I reach up and pull on Tim’s sleeve, smiling softly as he slides onto the bed next to me, putting an arm over my shoulder and pulling me gently into a side hug as he gets comfortable.  
Silence reigns over the room for a moment before Elizabeth speaks up.  
“You always struck me as an only child Neal, i’m glad that you have such a big family though, they obviously care about you.” she says, looking over the people in my room, three of which are on the narrow bed with me.  
“You have no idea” I tell her, thinking of all the other people who aren’t here, but still count as family.


End file.
